Fatigue
by Sadazen
Summary: Leon leaves Eternal Night, weary, broken and disheartened, speculating on the person who made him that way, and finds new strength in a seemingly foolhardy vow. [Songfic to Sarah McLachlan's "Time."]


**Author's Babble: **The writing of this thing was purely impulsive, thusly it's imperfection personified. (sweatdrop) The song doesn't quite fit, and it's almost a counter-theme of sorts, but it (cough, cough) spoke to me. Leon is also somewhat weird, but I never could write him very well... (sigh) And let's just say the (cough, cough) "weirdness" spoke to me too.

Oh well, noel. I hope you all like it, just the same. Thank you for your consideration.

**

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****Fatigue  
**

_**Time here all but means nothing, just shadows that move 'cross the wall.  
**__**They keep me company, but they don't ask of me. They don't say nothing at all.**_

I'm leaving, my friend; finally leaving this gods-cursed forest, and the Castle there on the hill. I'm leaving the blood and the sweat and the tears that this devils' abode wrung from my soul, and the shadows that dogged my footsteps as if to say that in this place, one is never truly alone.

Perhaps I'm leaving a little stronger, a little wiser.

But at what price? What price have I had to pay for the strength and the wisdom? It may have been more than I was prepared to give.

Were you here with me, you might have shrugged and said something pragmatic about how I shouldn't be thinking about that, how now is not the time.

But what exactly is "time" in this place, anyway? Apparently little more than an illusion… And you aren't here, are you?

How I wish you were.

_**And I need just a little more silence.  
**__**And I need just a little more time.**_

I always thought that if I did leave this place alive, Sara would be with me. I'd take her by the hand, perhaps, and together we'd walk back into the comfort of the light.

I imagined that you would be waiting for us. Not the pale and jaded, world-weary shell of a man that you became after Death took Elisabetha, but the friend I knew and laughed with, grieved with, and would have lived and died alongside if that was the Father's wish.

So much for fairy tales, no? For that's all they are, to this day. Fate has not been kind.

It ripped both brother and lover from me in one night. One Eternal Night.

_**You sent your thieves to me, silently stalking me, dragging me into your war.  
**__**Would you give me no choice in this? I know you can't resist trying to reopen a sore.**_

It's almost amusing, you know, how you played us like pawns in your little game of vengeance and bitterness. Sara and me, even that Walter Bernhard, who must have thought he was pulling the strings the whole time.

You were always too smart for your own good.

But why did you do it, friend? Why did you renounce the God you stood by for so long? I still fail to understand, though you said it was for the love you lost. You said it was what she would have wanted.

The man I used to know would never have loved such a woman. So I believe.

But then, the man I used to know would never have left me to be disposed of by Death.

Maybe you were just too far gone.

_**Leave me be, I don't want to argue.  
**__**I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone.  
**_**_And if I agree, well, it's just to appease you,  
_**'_**Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for.**_

Or were you? I'm not so sure, now that I think about all the things I could have done to draw you back from the precipice on which you placed yourself. A visit or two could have made all the difference, an offer of comfort, or a quiet reminder that Death is only a horizon, and that a horizon is nothing more than the limit of our sight. You would have listened to me then, Mathias. Isn't that right?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

At the very least, I could have wondered how you knew everything you did, that night when you struggled out of bed to tell me that she had been taken. But I, fool that I am, did nothing of the kind. And you were laughing at me and my blind nobility the whole time, weren't you?

All these _could haves _and _would haves _and _should haves… _They're nothing but excuses. I know that.

But they sting like salt thrown into a gaping wound.

_**You see love, a tight thorny thread that you spin in a circle of gold.**_  
_**To have me, to hold me, a token for all to see, captured to be yours alone.**_

You offered me Immortality, remember, in compensation for what we both lost? I wonder, what would have happened if I accepted it?

Why did you offer it at all? Did you see me as just another potential servant that you could bind with intimidation or sorcery? Or was it possible that you still believed in the friendship we once shared?

I don't know. There are many things I no longer know. It all seemed so simple in the beginning.

Nothing is that simple anymore.

_**And I need just a little more silence.  
**__**And I need just a little more time,  
**__**The courage to pull away.  
**__**There will be hell to pay,  
**__**The deeper you cut to the bone.**_

I think I've been fighting a losing battle all along.

_**Leave me be. I don't want to argue.**_**  
**_**I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone.**_**  
**_**And if I agree, well, it's just to appease you,**_**  
**_**'Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for.**_

One thing I've come to know, however. My bloodbrother is dead. You, whatever you call yourself now, killed him, and took that which is most precious to me. For that I will never forgive you.

"From this day on, the Belmont clan will hunt the night."

I hope you marked me then. There will indeed be hell to pay.

I'll be there when one of my own strikes you down. And it will be for Sara. For Mathias.

And for me

_**Time here all but means nothing, just shadows that move 'cross the wall.  
**__**They keep me company, but they don't ask of me. They don't say nothing at all.**_

Call it conceding for now, if you wish.

I'll be back.

_**Leave me be. I don't want to argue.**_**  
**_**I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone.**_**  
**_**And if I agree, well, it's just to appease you,**_**  
**_**'Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for.  
**_

**Fin**

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**Disclaimer (for good measure): **Castlevania: LoI, not mine. "Time" by Sarah Mclachlan, not mine either. This fic, in all its weirdness, is the only thing that belongs to me. Obviously. 

Wahaha!


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